During its formative years, the Japanese car industry leaned on European designers to inject a sense of style in its cars. For the sporting version of Isuzu’s forgettable Florian saloon, Giorgetto Giugiaro (while at Ghia) was commissioned to come up with a suitably export-friendly design. The Isuzu 117 Coupé was the result, and for the class of ‘68, it was very impressive indeed. It also hung around for a very long time, remaining in production until 1981. Engines were almost exclusively twin-cams with the exception of the original 1.6 and – unusually – a 2.2-litre diesel.